Tuesday 19 November 2013

If a picture paints a thousand words...

[This is the heading over an article posted today on the Lockerbie Truth website of Dr Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph.  It reads as follows:]

The opening line of the famous song by David Gates holds a lesson for us all.

Here are three photographs.

The first is of the fragment of timer circuit board said by the prosecution to have been found at Lockerbie.



Photographs two and three are of annotations written by Allen Feraday, the forensic officer on whose forensic report the Lockerbie verdict of Guilty was founded.

Photograph two is of his note dated 1st August 1991 concerning the above fragment. The words are "Plating on the two thin lines is of pure tin (Cu [copper] breaking through from underneath. Alan F.)"



The third is of his note on the same day concerning a set of circuit boards sent to him for comparison by the Swiss company Thuring. The words are "Tinning on thin tracks is of 70/30 sn/pb [tin/lead]. However this may be dipped or roller tinned on top of either the Cu tracks? or the Cu tracks with a layer of pure tin? Alan F."



There is a clear metallurgical difference between the two items. Feraday indicates some puzzlement as to why this may be the case, hence his two question marks.

But did he draw this difference and his two questions to the attention of the judges in the Lockerbie trial?

No. He stated with absolute certainty:

“The particular tracking pattern of the fragment has been extensively compared with the control samples of the [Thuring] MST-13 timers and circuit boards and it has been conclusively established that the fragment materials and tracking pattern are similar in all respects to the area around the connection pad for the output relay of the `MST-13' timer.”

"Conclusively established ... materials and tracking pattern similar in all respects ..." Ten simple words. Yet on this false statement a man was condemned to a lifetime of imprisonment.  

What was the origin of the Lockerbie fragment? Who made it, where and when? It clearly did not come from Thuring and was not from the batch sold to Libya in 1985. Whatever its origin, it contradicts the unique central feature of the prosecution case.  

The Scottish Crown Office continues to stonewall the nation and Scottish Government by pronouncing that this evidence can only be considered in a court of law.  Well, here are the pictures. Please judge for yourself.  

2 comments:

  1. This is direct evidence of misleading the court, in a case where 270 people died, and where the lie predictably would help the mass murderer escape his crimes, and put an innocent man in jail.

    - - -

    Did Allen Feraday technically commit perjury? A dishonest trial witness will often resort to pointing out that what they said wasn't false, but only interpreted wrongly.

    Especially expert-witnesses have this option.
    If the defense is not aware of the technical details, questions are not asked.
    If a man is accused of cyber-crimes, the defense may argue, that his computer wasn't even working at the time.
    Then, as witness for the prosecution, an IT guy could state that "upon checking the computer, I found the processor working perfectly, the hard disk being without a single bad sector, and the operative system in a fully usable state.".

    You'd forgive a judge/jury to believe that this meant, that the computer repair guy would have found the computer OK.
    Yet, above could all be true, but still would match 80% of the computers turned in for repair in a totally useless state.

    Did the guy commit perjury? Was it his fault that nobody asked him if the computer was actually working?

    Can you blame the defense for not realizing that this particular IT-guy intentionally constructed a statement that would be misinterpreted, not mentioning that the power supply was broken so the computer could not even be turned on?

    - - -

    Feraray stated:
    "...the fragment materials and tracking pattern are similar in all respects..."

    "similar". Are cats and dogs "similar" animals? I.e., "having a resemblance in appearance, character, or quantity, without being identical."

    Definitely, when seen on a distance or in the dark.

    So, could a policeman without technically committing perjury state, that that animals found in the house of an accused "in in all respects were similar to the sounds reported heard by the blindfolded abducted victim"?

    Thereby hiding the fact that the accused only had a cat, while the victim reported hearing a dog barking inside the house?

    - - -

    There would in other contexts be grey zones where it would be unclear what the witness might have known or meant.

    But not here.

    The IT guy and the policeman of above, and Allen Feraday, are in effect damned liars, deliberately hiding absolutely critical knowledge from a court.

    Feraday's telling history as a trial witness is documented here:

    http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/06/alan-feraday-and-wikipedia.html
    and here:
    http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/10/allen-feraday.html


    How on earth could Feraday be used to give testimony at Zeist? Despite his history.

    Would be hard for the Crown to answer, if they could be forced to even try.

    'Conspiracy theorists' has a much easier case saying "Simply replace 'Despite' with 'Because of' and you have answered your own question."

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  2. This "similar in all respects" was a phrase Feraday used quite often in his testimony (as did Hayes I think). It is clearly a form of words intended to be interpreted as "identical". He uses it for different pieces of the same suitcase, for example, when testifying that the pieces are, in fact, part of the same item.

    There's a lot of weasel wording going on in that witness box at Zeist. Hayes is a particularly egregious offender. He doesn't seem to be trying to help the court understand what he's talking about most of the time - in fact quite the opposite. Much of his testimony is obfuscatory in the extreme. Look at what he says about PI/911 for example. I mean it's a joke.

    Whether what Feraday said about the materials and composition of PT/35b amounts to perjury or not would be for another court to decide, but in my opinion he has a case to answer.

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